


The Space Between Matter

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coulson is getting his brain fried in the wayback machine, Coulson is made of pure BAMF fighting stuff, Edison Po is the scum of the earth, Episode: s01e11 The Magical Place, F/M, Raina is a natural flirt, Raina talks a good game but we all know what she wants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 03:26:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3513548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson was lying flat on his back and looked like death. At the sound of Raina's voice his eyes flew open. The scent of her perfume danced on the heavy air. It filled his nostrils with a sense of humanity. Raina inspected him in one sweeping look.  When her eyes met his, she smoothly snatched them away. Coulson frowned. Was that concern? </p><p>Sometimes, the softest touch was enough to bring one back from the brink. Even if that touch came from one's enemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space Between Matter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CrazyMaryT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyMaryT/gifts).



The electroshocks were coming faster. White-hot energy surged through his flesh, setting his nerve endings aflame. He howled in pain, it was all too much. He felt like he was being broken, one miniscule piece at a time.

A burly Centipede soldier hit him with another round of whoopass from the coward's end of a cattle prod while an unattractive man dressed in a suit sat watching nearby.

"Are you ready to cooperate?" asked Edison Po; psychopath and recent prison escapee. He wore an expression of bored insolence as he rhythmically tapped his finger on the arm of the ratted old chair he lounged  in. The rotting fabric, much like his patience, had started to fray.

Coulson attempted a smile, but all he could manage was a grimace.

"You will not gain classified Intel from me," he said. The calmness in his voice belied his broken state.

They were in a dilapidated building in the middle of no man's land. One hundred miles from the closest city, according to Po; as if he could be trusted with the truth.  

The building, while old, had been sturdily built. Even still, there was no escaping the heat and dust of the desert.

Three portable air conditioning units blew at full blast; however, none of that mattered to Coulson.  A sheen of sweat glistened on his skin, smearing the layers of dirt that had accumulated since his last shower. Since before he'd been drugged and kidnapped in a ruse that had cost a good man his life right in front of his son.

Po stood. In a few steps, he was alongside the table that held Agent Coulson. The agent's head rested on a miniature ramp that lead into a machine, into a ring of glowing blueness. The machine was designed to unleash hidden memories if one cooperated. Coulson was not cooperating, not in the very least.

With not a hair out of place and an expression of reserved boredom, Po repeated the question. “What do you see, Agent Coulson?”

“I’ll let you kill me before I give you anything.” Coulson said with equal reserve, though fatigue and pain could clearly be heard in his voice.

This would not break him. Po would not break him. He’d been through worse, and he’d survived. He’d died, yet here he was. This...this was just another walk in the park in comparison.

“And you very well may die. But first, you will cooperate. The Clairvoyant must have his answers,” Po continued.

“You will not gain classified intelligence from me. Do what you have to do, but my team will find me.”

“How? We are in the middle of the desert. There isn’t a town for hundreds of miles. Your team will be grasping at straws trying to pin your location. Face it. You control your own destiny. Cooperate, Agent Coulson, or be destroyed.”  

Po nodded at the Centipede soldier who quickly descended upon Coulson with another series of electrical shocks to the abdomen. Coulson’s body went rigid. His hips jutted up from the table as back-to-back hits sent currents coursing  through his body. He groaned in agony. His teeth sunk into the side of his tongue. He didn't want to scream but the torment seemed endless. It wasn't going to end...not until he gave in.

Finally, his loud, woeful scream traveled deep into the old, forgotten building, bouncing off walls and into Raina's ears.  She cringed for the untold time that day. Raina stood, smoothed down the front of her black dress with the pretty grey flowers and exited the room. Her black high-heeled pumps clacked against the rotting hardwood flooring as she made her way to the front.

“He doesn’t look good,” Raina said as she entered the room.

Coulson was lying flat on his back and looked like death. At the sound of Raina's voice his eyes flew open. The scent of her perfume danced on the heavy air. It filled his nostrils with a sense of humanity. Raina inspected him in one sweeping look.  When her eyes met his, she smoothly snatched them away. Coulson frowned. Was that concern?

Edison Po was just finishing up a call on his cell phone when she entered the dingy room. He approached her with a wicked gleam in his eyes as he tucked his phone inside the breast pocket of his blazer.

“Raina. What took you so long?”

“I was tending to our other subject. “

“The persuasion skills I spoke to the Clairvoyant so much about would be better served here with me, breaking this man."

“I would never use force to bend a man to my wishes,” she replied in a firm, yet gentle tone.

“He’s being difficult.”

“He’s being beaten…”

“Into submission. The Clairvoyant requested it,” Po said. He looked down at her with barely bridled lust. A sinister smirk turned the right side of his mouth. “I just got off the phone with him. He’s instructed me to turn this over to you. Make Agent Coulson cooperate...or else,” Po said. He took another long, greasy look at her body before exiting the room. Raina was left alone with Coulson and a few Centipede soldiers.

With a flick of the wrist she shooed them out of the room and approached the prone agent. Along the way, she grabbed Po's glass of water from a nearby end table and said,

“You look like you could use a drink."

Coulson eyed her suspiciously. Slowly and with exaggerated movements, he sat up and accepted the glass. He was completely parched. Screaming for hours did that to a man.

“So what, you’re my friend now?” he said, his sass still completely intact. “Because I’ve seen what you do to your friends.”

“Who?” Raina asked.

“Mike Peterson, Chan Ho Yin? You led them both to their deaths, all under the guise of friendship."

“Mike Peterson wanted to be a hero to his son. I gave him that," Raina said.

Coulson detected a tinge of pride in her statement and began to wonder: just how screwed up in the head was this chick?

"And Chan Ho Yin?" Coulson said.

"Scorch was a murderer, Agent Coulson. The serum simply uncovered his true nature," she said, her lips pursing with each syllable. But you…” Raina inched closer and closer until she stood between his spread thighs. “You are a good man. You’re no murderer, but you have killed. There is a distinction." Her large, heavily-lashed eyes roamed his face, silently challenging him. Coulson relaxed just so. He knew what game this was.

“Good men, who are also trained killers...well, they turn me on,” Raina said, exhaling heavily as she leaned in even closer.

Coulson raised one eyebrow when she placed both hands on his thighs, but he didn’t move. Raina leaned all the way in and whispered, “I would like to turn the machine on again. It induces Theta brainwave frequencies to help uncover secrets buried deep in the subconscious. Will you cooperate?”

Coulson smiled weakly.“You will not get classified intel out of me, Raina.”

Raina stepped back and walked around to the back side of the table. “I’m not interested in that information. I want what you want,” she said, easing in on him from behind. She ghosted the blade of her finger along the side of his neck. Her touch left a trail of goosebumps in its wake. Coulson shivered. She’d caught him off guard with the fingertip trick. He’d be better prepared for her next move.

Raina continued speaking in a low whisper. Her lips grazed the shell of his ear. “I want to know what happened to you...after you died,” she whispered.

Coulson shuddered once more. Now he was pissed. Not necessarily at Raina, but at his own body for its betrayal. She was good. He need not underestimate her again.

“Don’t you want to know what happened, Agent Coulson?" Raina continued. "Don’t you deserve to know? The love of your life thinks you’re dead.”

Coulson stiffened. “You leave her out of this,” he said. His handsome face twisted into an expression of pure hatred.

“How can I? S.H.I.E.L.D. is lying to you,” she continued as she rounded the table to face him again. “They lied to her too.”

The corners of Coulson’s mouth twitched  downward as he watched the tiny woman before him. She was manipulating him, that he knew. In one of his weakest moments, physically, mentally, she was attempting to play him like a flute. Yet...his eyes lowered to her full lips as she continued to speak. Apparently, his brain had been singed a bit in the machine earlier, because her lips were very sexy and she smelled like comfort and the combination was doing a number on him. It was distracting him. She was distracting him. What was wrong with him?

“They told her you died,” she continued. “Did you know that she cried for days? They broke her, Agent Coulson.”

Suddenly, anger surged in him. His eyes flickered up to meet hers.  “You don’t know anything about her, or about me,” he growled.

“I know plenty. The Clairvoyant has seen it all.”

“I hate to break it to you, but your clairvoyant is a fraud,” Coulson said.

“Is he? Because he knows all about your strengths,” she said, inching closer until she was wedged between his thighs. "He knows all about your weaknesses too.”  She returned her hands to his legs and Coulson’s body went rigid. He knew that should he move even one iota, the Centipede soldier watching them from the doorway would be back with his stick of electrocution, or worse, so he remained perfectly still. But before he could reign it in, his body began to respond to her touch. To the soothing sound of her voice. To her small, talented hands that she lightly ran along his inner thighs, the pads of both thumbs applying just the right amount of pressure as they made their journey to his center.

“Give me what I want, Agent Coulson. Give me what I want because it's what you want...to find out the truth about what happened. To find out what S.H.I.E.L.D. is keeping from you."

She lifted a hand towards his face. He flinched when she gently touched the area above his eye, just north of the brutal cut that was still deciding how much to swell. She meticulously traced the perimeter of the swelling with her forefinger, concentrating all of her attention on that one small area as her left hand gripped him mid-thigh. Coulson held his breath. She smelled much too tempting.

Even in his current battered and fried state, his body was responding to her proximity and explicit touches. She continued tracing and breathing slowly, deeply, her chest rising and falling as she feigned concentration. The hand gripping his thigh began inching towards his groin. Her thumb dug in as it approached  his crease. It was a moment of no return in five, four, three, two...

"If you wanted to fuck me, all you had to do was ask," Coulson said, when her hand tightened around the bulge in his slacks.  

"Very nice," she said, giving it a good squeeze. Coulson's breath hitched in his throat almost imperceptibly. Raina smiled and continued on.

"At least part of you knows how to cooperate," she breathed as she closed her mouth on his. He blinked twice before closing his eyes. The plumpness of her lips felt firm against his own and when she allowed him entrance, his tongue dove in to taste of her sweetness. Encouraged, Raina began massaging his erection. Her small hand knew exactly when to squeeze and when to rub and Coulson was getting harder by the second.

It wasn't until  the heel of her hand began roughly rubbing back and forth up and down his bulge that they moaned into each other's mouths. Coulson's was an animalistic growl centered deep in his chest. This was no picnic for him, being manhandled and liking it. He'd half expected her to try something like this - anything to lower his defenses. But he'd fully expected not to have given into her obvious seduction so damn easily. He felt like a pawn and a fool but it felt so good to be touched.

"That will be quite enough,"  Edison Po said. He stood in the doorway watching as Raina extracted herself from their prisoner.

"I was just-" Raina stuttered. Po nodded his head and the two soldiers flanking him broke off and headed straight towards Raina. She froze, her eyes wide with fright as the soldiers each grabbed one of her arms and dragged her bodily from the room.  Just as they crossed the threshold, Raina shot a look over her shoulder that sent chills down Coulson’s spine.

“What are you planning to do to her?” he hissed. Po meandered closer, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Why, Agent Coulson. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you actually cared about the fate of that young woman.”  Somewhere off in the distance, Raina screamed out in pain. “You see,” Po continued, “I’ve decided to switch tactics. Perhaps you would die before telling me what I want to know. But I doubt you’d let her die. Especially when all you have to do is cooperate.  Now please allow me to reiterate. We do not care about classified SHIELD intel. The Clairvoyant sees all of that.  All we are looking to discover is how you survived your death.”

Another round of hair-raising screams echoed down the hallway and Coulson bolted from the table. Po nodded at two soldiers, who handcuffed Coulson and dragged him down the hall to another dank room. It was smaller with no windows, and just as dirty. They shoved him hard. Coulson fell backwards and landed on a creaky old bed that smelled of mold and filth. The soldiers  snapped leg cuffs around his ankles and ran a long rusty chain from the cuffs through the rails of the metal footboard and secured to the bed with a padlock. The soldiers exited the room.

Moments later, Po stood in the doorway wearing a creepy leer. He’d removed his jacket and was busy rolling the sleeves of his dress shirt as he began speaking. “You have exactly one hour to listen to her screams,” he said.  Afterwards, I promise...you will cooperate.”  He began undoing his shirt buttons. When Raina’s cries sounded out once again, he broke into a wide smile.  “In fact, once I’m done with her, you’ll be begging to go back into the machine,” he said.

He was gone after that and Coulson was left to struggle against his chains and the horrified screams of the small, soft spoken woman he'd just kissed.  

 

   

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**Author's Note:**

> For CrazyMaryT who shares my joy in shipping Coulson with oh, so many characters.


End file.
